


for posterity

by stillscape



Series: tumblr prompts collection [6]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, reposts from tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-03-31 10:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13973175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: Collecting my shorter one-shot fics originally posted on tumblr, because tumblr has a way of sucking posts into a magic void, never to be found again.





	1. Insignia

Betty gets new earrings, two tiny silver crowns that she says nary a word about purchasing. She just cleans the posts with rubbing alcohol, puts them in her ears, and wears them to Pop’s, along with a revealing ponytail and slightly mischievous smile.

He notices as soon as she sits next to him, of course.  

“What are these?” he asks, tracing the soft, delicate skin of her earlobe with the tip of his index finger, the tiniest of smiles gracing his lips.

“Do you like them?”

Jughead nods, although he looks a little embarrassed by his own pleasure. He never did acknowledge her crown sweater out loud, and she never figured out whether or not he liked  _that_ , an indecision she’s chalked up to the general stress and chaos of his birthday, and to all his lingering insecurities about her feelings. Whether or not she was truly  _his_. Which she was.

Which she  _is_.

All these months later, he still sometimes looks at her like he can’t believe she wants to touch him, hold him, kiss him. All these months later. Even after sex. That look makes her insides flutter every time, even as it simultaneously breaks her heart.

She scoots a little closer in the booth, pressing her hip against his, and waits for the comfortable, familiar weight of his arm to fall across her shoulders.

“Is that…” The arm arrives, right on schedule. “It’s not, like, weirdly possessive of me, right?”

“Of course not,” she says, snuggling in close. “I picked them out. You didn’t tell me you wanted me to wear them.”

“True,” he concedes.

He doesn’t bring the earrings up again. Betty thinks—hopes—he understands what she meant by them.

She doesn’t belong to him. She  _chooses_  him. Over and over and over.

In Pop’s parking lot, Jughead ducks his head and grazes his lips just under her left ear, and she melts like a milkshake left outside in July.

A few days later, a tiny, battered silver key appears between the wooden beads of one of Jughead’s bracelets—not a bangle, per se, more like an actual tiny key he found somewhere, one that locks a cheap jewelry box or something similar. She notices when he shows up unexpectedly to walk her to school, and surreptitiously sneaks the cuff of his jacket sleeve up half an inch before taking her hand.

She says nothing, just squeezes his hand tighter.

The week after that, she notices a new, tiny sticker on the back of his laptop: a silhouetted female figure, bent at the waist, that she recognizes as belonging to a vintage Nancy Drew.

This time, she has to ask.

“Where’d you get that?” she says, raising her eyebrows at the sticker.

Jughead’s voice is all feigned innocence. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Cooper,” he says, but there’s a little twinkle in his eye that tells her everything she needs to know about what she was supposed to see.

Betty counters a few days later with socks, no-show ankle socks that, when she takes off her sneakers and plops her feet in Jughead’s lap as they sit on the couch in the trailer, are revealed to be covered in tiny hamburgers.

“Cute,” he says, but before she can get the foot rub she’d kind of been hoping for, he declares himself starving and suggests a trip to Pop’s.

The next time she takes his pants off, she discovers he’s purchased light blue boxers with a pink floral print.

“Are we taking this too far, Juggie?” she wonders aloud, as she fights down the urge to simultaneously laugh and cry. 

He shrugs. “Taking what too far?”

Betty shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says, and settles in to let him choose her all over again. 

In the afterglow, she cuddles against him. He draws invisible crowns on her skin.


	2. Not a Sandwich

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jughead x babies. Well, Jughead x one baby.

“It means ‘shining forest,’” Polly tells him as she puts the infant in his arms. Dagwood’s eyes are barely open; Polly’s are wide in the way Betty’s sometimes get, but (Jughead thinks) without the accompanying flash of understanding behind them.

“Shining forest,” Jughead repeats. In his peripheral vision, Betty is walking circles and lightly bouncing Juniper, who’s more awake than her twin and consequently fussier in her baptismal gown.

Polly nods. “Jason would have loved it. We never got to talk about names, but I know he would have wanted something strong and masculine. And we both loved the woods. So when I found it in the baby name book at the farm, I just knew.” She heads for the door, chattering all the while. “Anyway, thanks for taking them for a few minutes. I haven’t had the chance to do anything yet today, not even eat.”

“No problem, Pol,” Betty calls softly from the corner of the room. Juniper starts crying in earnest then, and Betty, looking a little stricken, speeds up her bouncing.

After a few unsuccessful laps of the room, Betty’s nose scrunches up.  

“She needs to be changed, I think,” she says, looking just a little bit disgusted at the prospect. “Are you okay alone with Woody for a few minutes?”

Jughead raises an eyebrow at her. “Woody, huh?” he says, and she rolls her eyes in return.

“I won’t call him that around Polly. Are you?”

“Yeah,” Jughead says. “Woody and I will be just fine.”

“Okay,” Betty replies. Her voice is a little uncertain, but it’s not until she mutters “I _think_  I know which way the diaper goes on,” as she heads out the same door Polly just exited that he realizes her concern is directed at herself, not him.

It’s been a long time since he held a baby, but he remembers Jellybean at that age. She’d been a fussy infant, prone to rashes and colicky for her first few months—but nevertheless weirdly compelling in her helplessness. He remembers his father squatting down next to him and explaining what it was a big brother was supposed to do, and he remembers taking it all very seriously, warming bottles of formula and applying store-brand diaper ointment as best he could.

Much, much later, it finally occurred to Jughead that when F.P. had said take care of your sister, it was supposed to mean  _protect her from playground bullies when she’s older_ , and not  _you’re six, that’s old enough to watch her for an hour or so_.

The baby looks up at him, round blue eyes and ruddy cheeks and blond fuzz. It’s much easier to see Polly in him than Jason, which Jughead can only believe is a good thing—Polly’s choice of name notwithstanding.

“Dagwood Blossom, huh,” he murmurs. A small tree with gnarled branches and pink flowers comes to mind, and he lets it linger for a moment before realizing no, those are  _dogwood_ blossoms.

Dagwood Blossom hiccups, but remains otherwise silent.

He doesn’t have any real connection to this baby, beyond maybe being its weird honorary uncle—a role he thinks he’d be loath to even consider taking on, were it not for the fact that he’s sure the influence of weird honorary uncle Jughead has got to be preferable to the influence of creepy actual uncle Chic.

Then again, the kid’s a Blossom, so his weirdness was probably determined at the moment of conception. Overdetermined, even. And who even knows what kind of kids live at this so-called farm? Maybe they all have names like Caspian and Lazarus and Fitzgerald, and it’ll be the Johns and Michaels and Matthews that get teased.

“Tell you what,” he says to Dagwood. “You call me if there’s a problem in three or four years, okay? And until then—until then, just try and take after your aunt.”

The door opens, and one of Dagwood’s two aunts strides through in thoroughly inappropriate tight black lace, her red stilettos clacking on the church’s old hardwood floor.

“Hand over my nephew, you hobo,” Cheryl orders.

Jughead holds the baby a little tighter. “Not _that_  aunt,” he whispers. “Please, not that aunt.”


	3. follow the arc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two separate snippets from the "I wish you would write a fic where..." tumblr meme, prompt: "I wish you'd write a fic about middle school bughead and spin-the-bottle!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for raptorlily. 
> 
> (I'm sorry I made you sad at first! you know I love you)

Time seems to slow down as the bottle spins and spins and spins, each revolution sending another of Betty’s anxieties to the surface of her mind.

The scab on her left knee, from cutting herself shaving, that Polly’s dress doesn’t quite cover. The dress itself, and how it gaps at the top because her chest isn’t even close to the task of filling it out. The giant zit on her forehead, which seems to have its own pulse, and the smaller ones sprinkling her chin, suffocating under a thick layer of concealer. The annoyed looks on the faces of some of her classmates when she’d given three correct answers in a row during algebra class earlier that day…

She’s not even sure why she’s at this party. (Because everyone was going, and she didn’t want to be left out.) She definitely doesn’t know why she agreed to play spin the bottle. (Because Archie had so eagerly plopped into the circle.) Regardless of where the bottle lands—even if it lands on Archie—Betty does not want her first kiss to be this, determined by fate and performed out of obligation.

The bottle screeches to a halt, and Betty’s heart first leaps into her throat and then slams back down when she realizes where it’s pointing.

Directly at Cheryl Blossom.

“Interesting,” says Cheryl, drawing out the word. “Well, while the rules of spin the bottle quite clearly state that the spinner must kiss the person on whom the bottle lands, I’m prepared to make an exception in this case, for my own sake.”

Since this party is at Cheryl’s house, and since Cheryl is Cheryl, no one questions this.

“But what unlucky soul should I pick for you?” Cheryl muses aloud, and Betty’s cheeks flush hot.

“Cheryl,” Archie says, warningly. “Don’t be—”

Cheryl interrupts him. “You,” she declares, abruptly reaching behind her, grabbing someone with her grown-up red manicured hand and throwing him into the center of the circle. “Go on. Five seconds is the minimum, but since I’d wager neither of you know what you’re doing, I’ll humbly request that you don’t subject any of us to the horrid sight for longer than that.”

Rubbing his arm where Cheryl released it, Jughead Jones scowls at his own feet. Maybe this won’t be so bad, Betty thinks. Jughead. Jughead is her friend. More to the point, Jughead will forgive her for not knowing how to kiss. He won’t make fun of her in the boys’ locker room. He won’t—

“I’m not playing,” he spits, before stomping out of the room entirely.

He won’t look at her, and he won’t kiss her, either.

He won’t kiss her.

“Well, then,” Cheryl says, blinking in affected surprise. “We’ll just have to—”

And even though she wants nothing more than to act like she doesn’t care, to be cool and calm and grown-up, she can’t. Vision blurred with tears, Betty barely fits the words “I’m not playing either,” between two sobs before hurrying out of the room herself, in the opposite direction of the way Jughead went.

 

***********************************************************

 

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, because she is. She’s sorry Cheryl tried to drag him into a game he didn’t want to play at a party he didn’t want to attend. She’s sorry for how awkward this is going to make the ride home, when they’ll be wedged together in the cab of Archie’s dad’s truck. She’s sorry for the scab and the zits and the dress and everything else that made Jughead not want to kiss her. She’s sorry she’s crying now.

She’s just…sorry.

There’s a long, long pause, during which it takes every ounce of Betty’s willpower not to crumple completely. Why, she wonders, why won’t he just leave her alone? If he’s not going to say anything, then what is he—

“It wasn’t you,” Jughead mutters, so quietly she almost can’t hear him.

She keeps looking up, up at the stars, even as a tear escapes and runs all the way down to her ear before she can swipe it away.

“It’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to lie.”

“Betty.”

If she does not react, if she keeps her sights on the heavens, maybe he’ll go. Maybe—

“I know you like Archie,” he says, and Betty realizes the night could, in fact, get worse. That it’s so obvious even Jughead can tell… “I know you wanted the bottle to land on him.”

Betty clenches her fists and wills Jughead to go away. It doesn’t work.

“Juggie.” Her voice sounds tiny and fragile and she just, god, she just wants this to be over. She wants to skip backwards in time to when she was younger and she could believe people when they said  _you look pretty, Betty_. She wants to skip forwards in time to when she’s grown up enough for none of this to matter. Twenty. Eighteen. Sixteen might even do it.  “Juggie, just… I want to be alone, okay?”

She hears him sigh. “Okay.”

She does not hear him walk away.

When she finally drags her gaze from the sky, wiping away even more tears with the tips of her already-damp index fingers, she finds Jughead still standing next to her on the balcony, still leaning with his elbows on the railing, still scowling exactly as he had when he’d run out of the room before and staring off into space.

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” he mutters, not looking at her. “And I wouldn’t want to in front of people, anyway. Not like  _that_.”

She feels her heart lighten just the tiniest bit. After all, she’d thought the very same thing herself, while the bottle was spinning. “No,” she agrees.

“I wasn’t even  _playing_.”

“I know. I’m sorry Cheryl dragged you into it.”

“It’s not—stop apologizing, okay? It wasn’t your fault.”

“I don’t even know why I’m at this party,” she admits.

“I’m only here because I have to spend the night at Archie’s, and he wanted to come.”

 _Have to_ , Betty notes. Not _I am spending the night at Archie’s_ , but  _I have to spend the night at Archie’s_. She wonders about that for a moment.

“Anyway,” Jughead sighs. “I stand by my decision not to participate in that particular social ritual. But I’m sorry it ruined your night.”

Betty is surprised to hear herself say “It didn’t ruin my night,” and even more surprised when she realizes that this is the truth. “It didn’t ruin my night,” she repeats, when Jughead looks at her with eyebrows raised. “I know, I know. But it didn’t. If it wasn’t that stupid game—”

 _Not you_ , she hopes Jughead hears;  _not you, but that stupid game._

“—then it would have been something else,” she concludes.

She tilts her head back to the stars.

Jughead continues to look at her; she can feel it in her peripheral vision, and—

“I’ve never kissed anyone either,” she admits.

“I bet most people haven’t,” Jughead says, cool and defiant like she sometimes wishes she could be. “I bet everyone who says they have is making it up.”

“Yeah. I bet you’re right.” She picks out the Big Dipper and follows its arc to Arcturus. Then, before she can stop herself, she blurts out, “If you could kiss anyone in our grade, who would it be?”  

She’s absolutely not expecting an answer, and so she’s more than a little shocked when he gulps—literally gulps—and says, simply, “You.”

Then she realizes he can’t possibly be serious, and laughs. “Good one, Jug.”

Then she looks at him, and realizes he wasn’t joking.

Jughead Jones wants to kiss her. Jughead, who doesn’t like people. Her, with her dress that doesn’t fit and her know-it-all tendencies and a face that she’s sure is now so blotchy from crying that all the concealer in the world couldn’t save it.  

As it had before when the bottle spun, when she’d waited to know her fate, time seems to slow. She’d wanted the bottle to land on Archie, but why? Because he’d been her best friend for so long? But—

But if Archie was really a good friend—

Archie certainly hadn’t bothered to follow her when she ran out of the room in tears. And she sees now, with a clarity she hadn’t known she was capable of, that this is only the latest in a series of tiny slights and inconsiderate acts—that Archie will always be her friend, but maybe not her best friend; that maybe he already isn’t—

And she does not want a bottle to decide her fate.

She wants to decide her own.

 _I want to kiss Jughead Jones_ , she thinks, forming the sentence in her mind, making it complete. Making it definite. Making sure she agrees with it.

 _I want to kiss Jughead Jones_ , she thinks again, with more confidence, and time speeds up again.

 _I want to kiss Jughead Jones_ , she thinks for a third time, and so she does.

His entire body goes rigid. Maybe even five minutes ago, Betty would have taken this as a sign that she ought to stop, change course, run away. But she doesn’t let herself panic, and before she can even take half a breath in, Jughead melts into her with such enthusiasm that her entire body feels like it’s floating a foot off the ground.

“Sorry,” she says when they break apart, because her eyes are leaking again and she just wishes—well, she wishes they’d stop. She swipes at her face for what feels like the millionth time that night. “I know I must look like a mess.”

Something softer dabs at the corner of her eyes—old plaid flannel, the tail of the extra shirt that’s always tied around Jughead’s waist.

“You don’t,” he says, suddenly shy as he drops the shirttail and takes her hands in his. “You always look pretty.”

She believes him.


	4. the fourth dimension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1x01 AU in which Jughead is dragged along to the party at Thornhill. (Trope mashup: did they or didn't they + time travel)

Jughead slinks off by himself, and to his own surprise…finds a fully functional time machine in the backyard. 

The catch, he discovers, is that it only goes back about twenty minutes. 

He’s familiar enough with the science fiction genre to understand how dire the consequences might be if he were to accidentally trap himself in some kind of paradox. This is how he comes to be hiding around the corner of the house, trying to avoid his twenty-minutes-in-the-future self, when a tear-streaked Betty Cooper collides with him. 

It doesn’t take much to imagine what happened. 

“I know this is going to sound crazy,” he tells her, once she’s calmed down a little. “But there’s a way we can keep Archie and Veronica from…” He’s not sure what he would do in the past. Provide some kind of distraction, he supposes. Drag Archie away. It’s no more than Archie deserves.  

“Kissing,” Betty supplies dully. “And no, there isn’t. We can’t turn back time, Jughead.” 

“The Blossoms have a time machine.” 

She believes him only because she, too, sees his future self approaching the odd-looking bronze contraption, climb in, push a button, and disappear. 

“I’m so confused,” Betty says. “That  _thing_ wasn’t there a minute ago. And there were  _two_  of you, Jughead.” 

The time machine rematerializes, like it’s really more of an  _Outlander_ -style portal rooted to the spot. 

“Well?” he says. “Want to take it for a spin?” 

Betty nods, and they climb in. Jughead’s heart is in his throat more now than it was twenty minutes ago, when he did this for the first time. 

They arrive twenty minutes in the past, and immediately sneak into Thornhill, but then–

Then Betty stops abruptly. 

“What?” he says.

“What kind of person would I be if I did this?” she wonders aloud. “I’m not–Archie’s my  _friend_. And Veronica’s my friend, I think. And–and even if I did do something, which I can’t, I’m already  _in_ that room, but even if  _you_  did something to stop them from kissing–what kind of person would that make me? A terrible one.” She swallows. “I’m a terrible person for even thinking it.”

“Betty,” he says, “this is the first marginally selfish thought you’ve had in your entire life. You’re allowed at least two before you start thinking you’re terrible.” 

She sort of laughs at that. Sort of. 

“I just… I’ve been thinking about it all summer, you know? I was going to come back from L.A.  _different_ , and Archie would finally notice me. And instead I came back exactly the same, and now Veronica’s here, and…” She sighs. “This is so dumb. Can we go back in time and prevent ourselves from going back in time?” 

Just then, the door opens, and Betty’s eyes go wide and horrified. Jughead turns and immediately sees why: it’s  _Betty_ , Betty from the past, rushing towards them with tears in her eyes. 

“I can’t let me see myself!” she gasps. “That’s the number one rule of time travel, I–Jughead, there’s nowhere to hide here, I–” 

He’s not sure whether she gets the idea first or he does. They can’t hide, but they can do something to make themselves invisible to a girl who won’t want to see anyone kissing. 

Betty’s lips meet his with a kind of terror, and in the split second he has before the  _other_ Betty gets to them, he swoops his whole body over her, around her, pressing her against the wall and cupping her jaw so that he’s hiding as much of her face from view as possible. 

He’s kissing Betty Cooper, and she’s kissing him back. 

He almost tries to end it as soon as the  _other_  Betty is safely away–for Betty’s sake, of course, he’s expecting her to pull back as soon as she can–but she doesn’t. She slows the kiss to what feels like a natural stopping point. 

For a moment after they break apart, they stand there, alone, in silence. He can hear her breath, soft and delicate, and realizes how  _close_  her face still is to his. 

“We could go back in time,” he says, swallowing down an unexpected swoop of anxiety, “and prevent you from having to kiss me.” 

Betty’s brow furrows slightly. 

Betty licks her lips. 

Betty reaches up to her face, where his hand still is, and puts hers over it. Her fingertips are incredibly soft. 

“I don’t think I want to,” she says. “I think… I want to get out of here. Do you–do you want to come to Pop’s with me?” 

They’re still sitting there, in their usual booth, when Archie bursts through the door. Alone, Jughead notes. He is not with Veronica Lodge. He joins them, naturally, swiping a stray fry from their shared plate. 

It takes him a full minute to realize that this situation might be odd.

“Wait,” Archie says. “Did you two leave together?” 

“Maybe we did, and maybe we didn’t,” Jughead replies. 

Across the table, Betty smiles at him.


	5. yellow-haired female

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trope mashup: soulmates + being locked in a room

They said the most closely connected soulmates met because they were drawn to each other, like moths to a flame. It didn’t matter how far apart you lived; if you were truly meant to be with someone, you would find your way to that person. 

You’d be struck with the urge to fly to Paris and stand outside the Louvre holding a red umbrella, and your soulmate would be struck with the urge to fly to Paris and stand outside the Louvre holding a blue umbrella, and the day would be perfectly sunny with no forecast of rain, and even though you wouldn’t have let yourself think you were flying to Paris to meet your soulmate, you’d turn to them prepared to make a comment about umbrellas, and you’d  _know_. (That was how Jughead’s best friend, Archie, had met Veronica.) 

You’d be struck with the urge to turn down a side street you’d never driven down before, and even though you weren’t usually the kind of person to pull over and help a stranger in need, when you saw the car with the flat tire, you’d think,  _today is a good day to be a good Samaritan_. (That was how Jughead’s sort-of other best friend, Sweet Pea, had met Ethel.) 

But Jughead? Jughead didn’t have those urges. Oh, he’d thought he might, once upon a time, when he’d been an idealistic teenager convinced of his own importance in the world. Never mind that he would never have been able to afford to fly to Paris. He’d never had the  _need_  to do so. Honestly, the only place he ever has an urge to go is the coffee shop two blocks from his apartment, and that’s because it’s convenient and has good seating, not because his soulmate would ever be in there. Unless his soulmate is coffee, which he sometimes thinks it might be. 

“I think your soulmate is coffee,” jokes the barista, the one who’s been working there since right around the time Jughead started coming in, the one with the perky blonde ponytail and the perfect pink lip gloss and the personalized pink apron with  _Betty!_  embroidered in a flowing baby blue script. She hands over his usual medium black drip, and he manages to chuckle at her joke, just enough that he doesn’t seem like a  _total_  asshole. 

He’s halfway through his coffee when he’s struck with the most pedestrian of urges, and–after making contact with the other barista, who nods in acknowledgement that she’ll watch his stuff–he gets up and heads for the coffee shop’s lone unisex bathroom. 

Halfway down the hall, he thinks, inexplicably:  _tampon_. 

All the way down the hall, he turns the doorknob and realizes someone’s locked themselves inside the bathroom. 

The thought  _tampon_  comes back. 

Betty wasn’t behind the counter when he headed back here. There’s nowhere else in the coffee shop she could be.  

He  _really_  wants to take a tampon to the bathroom. 

 

 


	6. that's the rub

_ It figures _ , Betty thought. Here it was, the hottest day of the summer. Of course, today was the day the AC unit in the window of the single-wide trailer that served as the offices of Andrews Construction chose to break. 

 

Andrews Construction was a fairly casual workplace; they were on a construction site, after all. And she’d known the boss since she was four. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that Fred would not be impressed if he happened to come into the office that day and found his temporary summer secretary doing paperwork in only her bra. 

 

(Not for the first time, Betty found herself envying her best friend. Veronica was spending her summer “studying abroad” on the French Riviera, but here she was, back in Riverdale, responsibly working as much as she could now so she wouldn’t have to work quite as much when she went back to school.) 

 

She compromised by untucking her blouse and tying it up at the waist. Surely Fred wouldn’t begrudge her a few inches of bare midriff, not when the indoor temperature had risen to ninety degrees at only ten o’clock in the morning. 

 

How the construction workers were doing anything in this heat, she had no idea. Taking care of them wasn’t in her job description, but she nevertheless twitched with the impulse to run to the convenience store down the street and pick up extra ice and Gatorade for them. 

 

Fanning herself with a copy of the relevant building permits, Betty stepped to the window and looked outside. Archie had taken his shirt off already; he didn’t burn easily for a redhead, Betty knew, but that was all relative, and she still winced at the sight of his bare shoulders reflecting in the sun. 

 

Her eyes quickly slid from Archie, though—not because she didn’t want to think about sunburn, but because next to Archie stood his childhood best friend, Jughead Jones, and Jughead, too, was shirtless. 

 

Betty had known Jughead for as long as she’d known Archie and Fred; she’d even seen him shirtless before, during the stretch in high school when he’d temporarily lived with the Andrews and neither he nor Archie seemed to have quite grasped the concept of closing the curtains.  _ Then _ , she’d thought nothing in particular of it. 

 

Now, though… 

 

Well, the last few years had been good to Jughead. That was all. 

 

That was  _ all _ , she told herself now, and sternly. Like she’d been telling herself all summer. 

 

It was too hot to go back to work, but she made herself do so anyway. 

 

To her own credit, she’d managed to get quite a lot of the day’s menial office tasks accomplished when there was a sudden clatter of boots on the trailer steps and the door flew open to reveal Archie and Joaquin Dos Santos helping Jughead inside. All three were shirtless, but still wearing construction hats, and Betty’s fingers twitched towards her cell phone; this was exactly what she imagined the opening scene of a gay porn must look like, and she wanted  _ so _ badly to sneak a picture and send it to Kevin.

 

She did not, though, her temptation giving way when she saw the pained look on Jughead’s face. 

 

“What’s wrong?” she said, hurrying over from behind the desk. 

 

“Nothing,” Jughead snapped. “I’m  _ fine _ , Arch, really—”

 

“Jughead twisted his ankle.” Archie deposited his friend on the ancient office sofa, and, with the authority of someone who had personally experienced far too many moderate sports injuries, announced, “You need to ice and elevate, Jug.” 

 

Jughead glared at him, but didn’t protest further. 

 

“Betty, can you help? We’ve really got to finish what we’re doing before it gets any hotter out there.” 

 

“Of course,” she said. “You two go.”  

 

They went, and she was alone with Jughead, whose torso gleamed with sweat as he grimaced and laid back on the sofa. It was so hot today that he didn’t even bother reaching for the beanie that lived in his back pocket when he wore the construction helmet, and on his head when he didn’t. Even soaked in sweat, his hair remained enviously voluminous. 

 

_ No, Betty _ , she told herself, as she filled a Ziploc baggie with ice from the freezer and dampened a handful of paper towels. There was an old flannel shirt laying around on one of the tables—she thought it might be Jughead’s own, in fact—and wrapped it around her homemade ice pack. She grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the fridge before hurrying back over the the couch.   

 

“Do you need a hand getting your boot off, Jug?” 

 

He was already trying to sit up again. “No, I can—” he started, but he winced again when his fingers tugged on the boot laces. 

 

“Let me,” Betty said, and then, “ _ Let me _ ,” more forcefully, when Jughead glared at her. 

 

He let her, though. She hurriedly grabbed an old paper banker’s box and put that on the couch, topping it with the lone, incredibly flat throw pillow before helping Jughead raise his foot. Then  she kneeled on the floor beside the sofa (carefully sucking in her own stomach, which she was suddenly conscious was not quite as toned as it had been in her cheerleading days) and unlaced the boot as gently as she could. 

 

“I’m going to pull it off now, okay?” she said, looking up at Jughead.

 

He nodded. “Don’t judge me,” he said, through gritted teeth. 

 

“Don’t  _ judge _ —?” 

 

She understood what he meant when she eased off the boot to reveal a pizza-print sock. 

 

“Juggie,” she started.

 

“They were a gag gift from my sister,” he said, “and it’s been laundry day for about three days.” 

 

“They’re cute.” Betty laid a hand gently on his leg. “I need to take this one off to look at the swelling, though, okay?” 

 

Jughead nodded again, and, telling herself it wasn’t weird to see his bare foot (Betty didn’t have anything  _ against _ feet, not particularly; they just weren’t her thing, she peeled off the pizza sock and laid it next to him. She rolled the leg of his jeans into a loose cuff and was relieved to see that under all the fabric, his skin was unbroken and unblemished, without any discoloration or swelling. 

 

“It looks pretty good, Jug. I think you just tweaked it.”

 

“That’s what I told Archie,” he said. 

 

Still, he stiffened when Betty’s hand—acting entirely of its own volition—gave his leg a friendly rub before she reached for the ice. 

 

“Sorry,” she said, aware her cheeks were flushing red as she drew her hand away. The heat, she hoped, would be enough to explain  _ that _ . “Did I hurt you?”

 

(Sometimes, over all the years she’d known him—sometimes, she’d thought she’d caught Jughead looking at her in a way that suggested he might, possibly, want to think of her as more than a friend. But as those years went on, and he had failed to ever act on those looks, well…)

 

“No, it’s…” Jughead cleared his throat just the tiniest bit. “It felt good, actually.” 

 

“Oh.” She started arranging the ice pack on his ankle, making sure the flannel was in place against his skin. “Well, I could, uh…” 

 

“You don’t have to,” Jughead said, entirely too quickly. “Betty, I know you have better things to do today than play nurse.” 

 

“I don’t, actually.” She climbed up from the floor and perched on the edge of the couch instead. “It’s too hot to get anything done.” 

 

Finally, she remembered she’d dampened some paper towels for Jughead. They were no longer as cool as they had been, but she handed them to him anyway, and he looked appreciative as he wiped his face of sweat. 

 

Her hand was rubbing his leg again.  _ Traitor _ , she thought. And yet, she made no particular effort to get that hand back under conscious control. 

 

“Betty.” There was a hint of amusement in Jughead’s voice. “You’re staring at your hand like you’re about to murder it.” 

 

“Sorry,” she said again, though she wasn’t sure she really needed to be apologizing. “I, um… I know this might sound a little weird, but I could probably, um…” 

 

Jughead raised an eyebrow at her hesitancy, and she thought she understood why; he probably hadn’t heard her stumble over her words since they were fifteen, and she was still occasionally tongue-tied over everyday teenage mating rituals. 

 

She took a deep breath.  _ Speak normally, Betty _ , she told herself. 

 

“I could give you a massage, if you thought it might help,” she said.  _ Normally _ . “All those years I spent on the River Vixens, I got pretty good at working out the aches and pains.” 

 

Jughead’s mouth opened slightly, but he said nothing. He then seemed to realize as much, and reached for one of the bottles of water she’d brought over. As he took a swig, condensation from the bottle dripped onto his bare skin. 

 

Betty swallowed, and forced herself to look back at Jughead’s leg. “See,” she said, getting to work, “it might be your ankle that’s injured, but a lot of the time, you can make it feel a little better by loosening up the muscles in the calf.” 

 

“Is that so.” 

 

“It is so,” Betty declared. His calf was… well, it too was sweaty, which was a little gross, but it was also lean and muscular like the rest of him, and so she found she didn’t mind the sweat. 

 

Probably, she thought ( _ definitely _ , she knew), giving her coworker a massage was even more inappropriate than going topless in the office would have been. But she didn’t want to stop, especially not after Jughead closed his eyes, laid back against the flattened cushions, and groaned, “You have magic hands, Betty.” 

 

“Feeling better already?” 

 

She looked back up at Jughead’s face as he shifted slightly upright, propping himself up on one elbow. “If I say yes,” he said, “are you going to stop?” 

 

“Do you want me to stop?” 

 

There was a brief pause, during which she could see Jughead considering his words carefully. He looked at her with something akin to hope in his eyes—or maybe it wasn’t  _ akin  _ to hope, maybe it was  _ actual _ hope, and she was having a hard time recognizing it because she’d so rarely seen Jughead let himself hope before.  

 

Jughead licked his lips, and then said, “Is it okay if I don’t?” 

 

“Of course,” Betty said at once. “As long as it’s okay that I don’t want to stop, either?” 

 

He nodded, giving her the smallest and shyest of smiles. 

 

Betty let her hand drift slightly further up his leg. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. fairy godmothers

“What do you mean, you  _can’t just be friends_  with me anymore?” Jughead asked, as the pounding in his head–which had only recently receded–returned with a vengeance. “Were we friends before?” 

Kevin Keller pushed back from the cafeteria table, looking vaguely offended.  _Good,_ thought Jughead. He had meant to be slightly offensive. 

“Any friend of Betty’s is a friend of ours,” Veronica supplied as she slid into the seat next to Kevin. Her dark eyes were bright and sparkling. Jughead did not trust that sparkle. “And any  _boyfriend_  of Betty’s…” 

Jughead choked on his chocolate milk. “Is  _not_  a boyfriend of yours,” he sputtered, even as the simple phrase  _boyfriend of Betty’s_  set his heart pounding just as fast as his head. 

Now Veronica and Kevin both looked vaguely offended. “Perish the thought,” they said, in unison. For a moment, the three of them merely scowled at each other. 

“Look,” Veronica started, laying what he supposed was a conciliatory hand on his forearm. “Look, Jughead. I wouldn’t have predicted it, but now that it’s happened, Veronica Lodge is all for it. You’re good for Betty, that much is obvious, but–” 

“But in one particular aspect, you are not good enough for Betty,” Kevin burst in. “ _Yet,”_ he hastily amended, when Veronica shot him a look. 

“Kevin–” Jughead started. It was bad enough having that voice in the back of his mind, the one that could somehow whisper loudly enough to be heard over the worst caffeine withdrawals, the loudest motorcycle engines, Archie’s snoring. Everyone already knew, or everyone except Betty already knew, and he didn’t need Kevin Keller saying it out loud. Not anywhere, but especially not at school, when Betty herself was liable to appear out of nowhere at any moment. 

“You need a sartorial intervention,” Kevin said, now adopting the world’s worst British accent. “And we are here to provide it.” 

“ _What?”_

“What Riverdale’s own Tan France means is,” Veronica explained, “have you decided what you’re wearing to Homecoming?” 

“I have a suit,” Jughead said curtly. 

A knowing glance was exchanged between his two tormentors. “Oh,  _no_ ,” they said, again in unison. 

“The one you wore to Jason’s funeral? It’s black.” 

“You wore it to a  _funeral,_ that’s positively morbid–” 

“It doesn’t even  _fit_  you–” 

“It’s the suit I have,” Jughead cut in. (It was not, technically speaking, his suit. But his father wouldn’t notice if he borrowed it again.) “And Betty won’t care.” 

“She will not, because she’s an angel,” Veronica sighed, and on her sigh Jughead was somehow carried back to Betty’s bedroom, and the look she’d given him, and… 

“So I’m wearing it again,” he said. 

“Or,” Veronica said, “we could upgrade you.” 

“Tailoring can do wonders to make it look like you know how to stand up straight,” Kevin added. 

“We will  _bring out your shoulders_ ,” Veronica declared grandly, standing up and sashaying to the other side of the table to pluck at the edges of Jughead’s hoodie. 

“I’ve got the swatches,” Kevin announced, and he threw a couple of squares of shiny dark fabric on the lunch table. “We have a range of options here. For your coloring, I’m going to recommend a blue. I think anything between sapphire and navy would bring out your eyes.” 

Veronica, now to Jughead’s side, nodded. “And a nice, solid, dark neutral will go with the hat. Unless…” She raised her eyebrows, looking hopeful. “No? Okay. Just thought I’d float the idea.” 

“I told you,” Kevin said. 

“You boys and your security blankets. Ten to one I won’t be able to get Archie out of his sneakers for the occasion. Still, we’ll work with what we have.” She leaned over the table, propping herself up one one elbow, and with her free hand reached out to the back of his neck. “Can we at least get Daddy’s barber to give you a nice trim?” 


	8. the reading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A drabble set in the [modern love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14825711/chapters/34310030) universe.

“It’s really not that bad,” he insists, and in that moment, Jughead suspects his wife currently both loves and hates him in equal measure. “They’re just dishes.”

“Jug,” she sighs, shifting the baby’s head from one arm to the other. “It’s not just the dishes. It’s the dishes, and the living room’s a mess, and the laundry hasn’t been done, and–” 

She bites her lip, and in the gesture, he can read the rest of the list, one he’s heard several times now: Betty’s skin is freaking out again, her boobs are leaking, every cell of her body is tired. 

Every cell of Jughead’s body is tired, too, though he knows Betty has it worse. Their son may have his own name, and (so far, anyway) he may have Betty’s blue-green eyes and blond hair, but he’s a Jones through and through. Two months into his short life, he has yet to go longer than three hours and fifteen minutes without demanding to be fed. If she makes it through the next year without her boobs falling off, Betty has said on more than one occasion, she’ll really have accomplished something. 

“Is your mother on her way over?” 

“She’d better not be,” Betty sighs. 

“So who cares what the house looks like?” 

“ _I_ do.” 

(The solution, they both know, would be to hire a cleaning service. But their respective upbringings seem to have prevented them from being willing to do so: Betty bristles at the idea of a stranger cleaning her house better than she could, and even though he knows they can easily afford it, Jughead can’t bear the thought of paying someone to do something they can do just fine themselves.) 

“We’ll get it all done before we leave,” he promises. “Or we’ll at least get the dishes done.” 

“We have to get the laundry done before we leave,” Betty says, rather glumly. “I’m out of clean nursing bras.” 

Not for the first time, Jughead says, “You know, you guys don’t  _have_  to come.” 

He says it in part for the satisfaction of knowing what Betty’s reaction will be: the familiar stubborn jut of her chin; the even more familiar exasperation of her eyebrow lift. 

“Of course we’re coming, Jug. You haven’t missed a single one of my book tours, and we’re not going to miss yours.” 

The so-called book tour will be an entire four days: one reading in Boston, one in New York, one in Philadelphia, and a travel day. It’s less than he’d initially hoped for–he’d been hoping his publisher might at least drum up enough interest for a reading in D.C.–but he’ll take what he can get, especially if the shorter “tour” means all of them can go. 

“Goo,” adds the baby, helpfully. 

“That’s right,” Betty says. “We should go. Can Daddy put you in the car seat while Mommy gets her shoes on?” 

An hour later, they’re in place behind a folding lectern and a large potted plant at Riverdale’s only bookstore. Betty hands him the baby, and as she busies herself putting the nursing cover away, Jughead allows himself a moment. A copy of his second novel sits on the lectern, waiting to be opened and read from; a dozen additional copies sit on a table nearby, waiting to be (hopefully) purchased and signed. 

(He knows better than to count on anyone other than Archie, Brigitte, Fred, Alice, and Cheryl showing up at this thing. But still.) 

Bouncing the baby lightly in his arms, he points at the stack of books, noticing as he does so that he’s got dried spit-up on the sleeve of his sweater. 

“See,” he says. 

Teddy’s brow wrinkles. 

“That’s right,” Jughead murmurs. “That’s right.” 


	9. blood on her hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter contains mentions of canon-typical violence.

Betty should have realized that hiding bodies was something you got better at with practice. She should have, but she didn’t, because it wasn’t a realization she  _wanted_  to have. It wasn’t a skill she  _wanted_  to practice. 

“Practice makes perfect,” she muttered automatically, so quietly she couldn’t even hear her own voice over their combined footsteps on the forest floor. 

Jughead turned around sharply, though, when a half-strangled laugh rose right out of Betty’s mouth. He turned around so sharply that he dropped Betty’s father’s– _no_ , it wasn’t, this  _thing_  wasn’t her father– 

“Sorry,” she said, swallowing the horrid reflex back down. “I was just thinking, Jug–it wasn’t even a year ago that we almost broke up because I tried to throw you a birthday party.” 

“And now, this.” Jughead somehow sounded wry and exhausted at the same time. “Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?” 

Her, the formerly perfect girl next door. Well, no. She had never quite managed perfection, had she? She was glad of it now, even as she choked back bile. 

No, she wasn’t. 

Right now, she wished she could go back–back to the girl who’d only wanted to please. Back to the girl who’d been afraid something was seriously wrong with her because she sometimes clenched her fists so tightly that her palms bled. Back to the girl who’d been  _ashamed_  of that. 

There was blood on her hands now, and the blood wasn’t hers. 

What felt like hours later, they arrived at their destination–the darkest hairpin curve they could find, at the edge of Fox Forest, near the cruising zone. They dumped what once was her father in the middle of the road. They smeared Hal’s own blood across the pavement. 

It would look, they hoped, like escaped serial killer Harold Cooper was the victim of a hit-and-run. 

“How long do you think it’ll be before someone finds him?” she ventured. 

Jughead sighed. “Not long. Logging trucks are usually running through here by daybreak.” 

Betty nodded, and swallowed, and felt one fat tear roll down her cheek. It felt dark and heavy, like blood. She swiped it away. 

It would not stain her. She would not let it. 

“You didn’t have a choice, Betts,” Jughead said. “You’re not a bad person. He would’ve killed your mom. He would’ve killed  _you.”_

“I know,” she said, and when the words sounded small, she said them again. “ _I know_.” 

Jughead eased his fingers into her clenched fists, loosening her grip. Blood streaked Betty’s palms. It was hers. 

He kissed her scars. Blood stained his lips. She kissed it away. 

They donned their helmets, climbed on the motorcycle, and drove away.

They did not look back. 


	10. the big heat

“Dammit,” Jughead muttered, when—after a full three minutes—the power failed to come back on. Considering how hard it was snowing outside, considering how hard wind and branches were whipping against his window, he couldn’t honestly say he was surprised. He hit the button to turn on his phone screen and muttered “Dammit” a second time. Fifteen percent battery. There was no way his phone would make it through the night on that. 

 

His flashlight wasn’t in its usual spot in the junk drawer, and then he remembered: he’d taken it down to the parking area to inspect one of the darker corners of his bike a few weeks ago, put it into one of his carrier bags, and never brought it back up. Well, there was no way he was going outside to his bike  _ now _ . 

 

Did he have candles? No. He didn’t. Why the hell would he own candles?  _ Because of situations like this, you idiot _ , he told himself. 

 

What he had, at least, was a big pile of logs. He’d chosen this unit precisely because of the quaint, functional, wood-burning fireplace in the living room. Last winter, he’d used the fireplace often even though he hadn’t had a need to; Jughead simply was, and always had been, drawn to fire. 

 

He allowed himself to feel smug about his fireplace now, as he realized that the heat had gone out too. 

 

As he started to set up the fire using what precious little phone-battery flashlight he could spare, Hot Dog let out a short, quiet whine. 

 

“You’re right, boy,” Jughead said decisively. “We  _ should _ eat all the leftovers in the fridge before they go bad.” He made it into the kitchen with only a mild toe stub where carpeting turned to (freezing) vinyl flooring. 

 

He opened the fridge, and realized: there weren’t any leftovers. He’d taken the last of them to work that day and eaten them for lunch. They were  _ good _ leftovers, albeit entirely of the appetizer variety: spinach and cheese dip, little roast beef and horseradish pinwheel sandwiches, sausage-stuffed mushrooms. All were still delicious two days after his neighbor Betty’s holiday party, the one he’d semi-crashed after running into her at the mailboxes. 

 

(“It’d be good to get to know each other better,” she’d said, her friendly smile and perky ponytail framed by the Peter Pan collar of a form-fitting ugly-but-cute Christmas sweater, and despite Jughead’s lifelong antipathy towards social occasions full of strangers, he found himself agreeing before she even mentioned Swedish meatballs.

 

They had talked. They hadn’t talked a lot, but they talked enough for him to regret leaving with only her Tupperware and not her phone number. 

 

But then—she wanted the Tupperware  _ back _ , he was sure. It was the good kind. It was  _ glass _ . So he had a standing invitation to knock on her door.

 

Possibly.

 

He had yet to figure out a smooth segue from “I’m bringing back your dishes” to “Can I have your number?” or, when his mind  _ really _ got going, “Is that mistletoe still up?”) 

 

His fridge now contained condiments, and not much else. He knew there was at least one ramen noodles in the cupboard, but since his stove was electric, he had no way of cooking them. 

 

There was no way anyone would deliver in this weather. He wouldn’t dream of asking anyone to. 

 

He wondered if Betty had any food left over. 

 

Hot Dog whimpered again, this time from the front door, which he gently pawed. 

 

“You really have to go out in this?” Jughead sighed, but he would have to walk Hot Dog again tonight no matter what, and might as well get it over with before he started his fire. They could collect the flashlight, too. “Fine.” 

 

He pulled on boots, coat, scarf, and gloves to go with the hat he was already wearing, and got the leash. 

 

Mercifully, Hot Dog didn’t want to be out in the weather any more than Jughead did, and performed his business quickly. When they returned to their apartment, Jughead aimed his flashlight beam at his doorknob. 

 

He didn’t need to. Someone with a camping lantern hanging from the crook of her elbow was just about to knock on his door with a fleece-trimmed, pink-gloved hand. 

 

“Betty?” 

 

“Hi,” she said. Even in the near-total darkness, he could see that her cheeks and nose were tinged pink with cold. A pile of stuff sat at her feet, and he wondered what the hell all of it was. 

 

“I was going to bring your dishes back soon.” 

 

“You ate all that already?” she said, sounding amused. 

 

He shrugged, though it probably wasn’t visible under all his layers. “It was good.” He was close enough to smell her now: gingerbread, and that delicious gravy that covered the Swedish meatballs. Or no, that wasn’t Betty. There was a crockpot in the pile of stuff by her feet—a warm one, it seemed. The incongruity of it temporarily flummoxed him, and he fumbled with his keys instead of unlocking the door like a normal person. 

 

“Good,” Betty echoed. “I mean, it’s good that you thought it was good, because I have more. I brought more leftovers. Because my fridge isn’t working, and I didn’t want them to go bad, and…well, you can see I didn’t even cook all the meatballs for the party, I had them going all day while I was at work.” 

 

“You won’t hear me complaining,” Jughead said, as he finally managed to unlock the door. “Uh, do you want to come in?” 

 

“If you don’t mind.” 

 

Jughead raised both eyebrows, and Betty grinned—albeit a little sheepishly—as she ducked down to pick up the stuff at her feet.   

 

“I have an ulterior motive,” she said, as she set her lantern and crockpot and gingerbread and what looked like various backup phone chargers on his kitchen counter. It sounded like a confession, and Jughead’s heart swelled of its own accord. “I, um. My heat’s out, so I was hoping…” 

 

His heart deflated just a little. 

 

“You remembered I have the unit with the fireplace,” he said. “Well, my firewood is yours, neighbor.” 

 

Betty looked confused for a moment. “You have a fireplace?”

 

From her Mary Poppins array, she produced a plush red blanket. 

 

“This is all I grabbed,” she said. 

 

In the dim light, Jughead could almost swear she was batting her eyelashes at him. Then she looked over at his fireplace, and cleared her throat slightly. 

 

“And you only have one log over there, Jughead,” she said. “We might still have to huddle for warmth.” 

 


	11. marshmallows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “you bought a new coat that makes you look like a marshmallow and you’re scolding me for being outside in a sweater”

“I can’t believe this school prioritizes blind, slavish devotion to the football team over the physical wellbeing of its non-athletes,” Jughead grumbled, as they trudged into the bleachers for the last pep rally of the football season.

Light snow had started to sprinkle, though nothing was sticking yet. The tiny flakes landed on the sleeve of Betty’s new cream-colored down puffer coat, where they didn’t melt so much as simply vanish.

Where the flakes hit Jughead, they left tiny damp spots.

“I can’t believe you’re out here in only a sweater, Jug.”

“It’s fine. I’m not that cold.” Jughead reached up and tugged the brim of his beanie more firmly over his ears, clearly weighing his next words carefully as he studied Betty from tip to toe.

She groaned. “Not you, too.”

“What?”

“Cheryl already made fun of me.”

She looked out at Cheryl, and Polly, and the rest of the River Vixens, bouncing around on the sidelines in their usual tiny uniforms. Did she envy them, truly, on a day like today? Less than usual, she decided. There was something to be said for being able to wear pants and a coat.

(Still, though—if she’d made the squad—) 

“For what?”

Betty shot him her most withering look. “Don’t act like you didn’t hear her, Jug.” Cheryl had, after all, delivered her pronouncement in the middle of the cafeteria, in front of most of the student body.

“When she called you a marshmallow?” His eyes narrowed slightly, and Betty—already blushing at the memory—blushed even harder at the fact that Jughead had clearly noticed her blushing. “That’s only an insult if you don’t like marshmallows. And she had a point.” He plucked gently at her sleeve. “This coat does have a touch of the puffy confectionary about it.”

“Why aren’t you wearing a coat, anyway?” she demanded.

“Just didn’t grab one before I left this morning, that’s all,” he said, shrugging as though it was no big deal. It was a big deal, though, and it wasn’t much of a shrug; Jughead’s arms were folded tightly across his chest, and his shoulders were already hitched all the way up against the cold.

“Jug, you wear coats half the summer.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t realize you paid such close attention to my sartorial choices, Cooper.”

“Well, now you’re shivering,” she said. “And your lips are turning blue.”

Jughead said nothing; he merely turned his face back to the field. Betty made a snap decision.

“Come on.” She took her toasty warm hand out of her pocket and grabbed his, which was unsurprisingly freezing. “Let’s play hooky from this dumb pep rally and sit in the student lounge. I’ll steal us some hot chocolate from the front office.”

“And miss the chance to sacrifice your firstborn to our football overlords?” he asked, gazing down at their linked fingers. “Whatever will Archibald think?”

“Who cares what Archie thinks? He’s only on the freshman squad. It’s not like he’s playing in the big game.” She’d said the words to convince Jughead to come with her, but as they left her mouth, she realized they were true: she did not care what Archie thought.

She felt, suddenly, free.

“Besides,” she added, nodding towards the sidelines, “he looks distracted.” Archie was currently making moony eyes at at least three River Vixens.

Jughead shivered once, hard, but did not move towards the door. “That doesn’t…bother you?”

“No. Why should it?”

There was a beat, and then Jughead sprung forward with a step so decisive that Betty—still holding his hand—was nearly jerked off her feet. “Hot chocolate, you said?”

She hurried to follow him. “I know where they keep it.”

“What about marshmallows?” Jughead asked.

“What about them?”

“Do they have any?” He paused for a moment, and looked at her, seemingly weighing his words again. “I…really like marshmallows.”


End file.
